Administrative Structure: The Research Cores will provide material and operational bases for the existing intellectual and scientific entity that is the Center for Hearing and Balance, along with associated investigators. As such the administration of the Research Cores will be closely tied to the existing structure of the Center which is directed by Dr. Eric Young. Most of the Core faculty participate in the academic activities of the Center for Hearing and Balance and therefore have weekly contact at research seminars, in classroom teaching, or elsewhere. In addition, Fuchs, Nathans and Glowatzki meet regularly through their membership in the Center for Sensory Biology. Interactions between Carey, Delia Santina, Francis, Fuchs, Glowatzki and Lane will be enhanced by their location in the newly-renovated Oto-HNS research complex on the eighth floor of the Ross building. The entire User's group, including the senior and junior technical staff, will meet semi-annually to discuss operations, equipment or supply needs, and to resolve scheduling or use issues. One of these meetings will include the annual Poster Session (see next paragraph). The Executive Committee, consisting of the PI, and individual Research Core Directors will meet quarterly to resolve personnel matters or user priority issues. The staff of each Core will maintain time sheets to document user access and the Director of each Core will set priorities for use, with special consideration for junior or underfunded faculty. A Research Cores Website has been established and will be further elaborated. Operations communiques will be posted, user schedules published and research abstracts displayed on the website. In addition, the Administrative Assistant will use email distribution lists of Core users to keep information flowing. A "Research Core Poster Session" is held annually to chart the progress of individual research projects, compile information for reports, and to elicit advice for continued progress. As described briefly in the "Major Accomplishments" section, this is a 3-4 hour meeting the week after ARO during which posters from that meeting are displayed outside all member laboratories. Additional space is reserved in the Talbot (BME) and CHB libraries (Ross) for those more distant labs, and to lay out refreshments. The roster of presenters provides a helpful nucleus for annual progress reports, and brings ongoing research in member laboratories to the attention of the entire coterie of P30 participants. Finally, this provides an opportunity for meeting new students and fellows in member laboratories, and further enriches those interactions. The Core Center Director, Paul Fuchs joined the Center for Hearing and Balance in July of 1995, where he is now John E. Bordley Professor and Director of Research in Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery, with joint professorial appointments in the departments of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Neuroscience. He teaches in the undergraduate BME curriculum, serves on the BME Advisory Committee (the executive committee for the graduate training program in BME), and has substantive ties with the department of Neuroscience through teaching in the medical and graduate school curricula, including codirection of a semester-long graduate course in Sensory Physiology with K.W. Yau. Ties with the other basic science departments have been further strengthened by the genesis of a newly-endowed Center for Sensory Biology at Johns Hopkins for which Dr. Fuchs is Co-Director with R. Reed, Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics. He is a co-author of the fourth edition of the neurobiology textbook "From Neuron to Brain" (Sinauer Press). He has maintained NIH funding since starting his laboratory in 1984 and now directs a multi-faceted approach to the study of hair cell physiology that includes electrophysiology, histology and molecular biology. Dr. Fuchs presently serves as Chairman of the Board of Scientific Counselors at NIDCD and recently was voted president-elect of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology. A particular strength of the Research Cores is that the Directors also serve within the administrative framework of the Center for Hearing and Balance (CHB) and member departments. Dr. Eric Young, Director of the Engineering Core, is head of the CHB, PI of the CHB training grant, and formerly director of Graduate Studies in BME. Drs. Fuchs, May, Ryugo and Wang are all members of the CHB and work closely with the Director of the Center for Hearing and Balance to ensure optimal integration of the Research Cores into the overall mission of the Center. The Principal Investigator on the Research Core Center grant, Dr. Fuchs is Director of Research in Otolaryngology-HNS, oversees research training in the residency program, reports to the Chair of Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery and through that office to the Dean of the School of Medicine.